Steinheil Munchen Orthostigmat 35mm F4.5 VL

Review and Photo example of the Steinheil Munchen Orthostigmat 35mm F4.5 VL.

Gallery

The sample photo were taken with the LEICA M9

Review

The Steinheil Munich Orthostigmat 35mm F4.5 is a lens designed, manufactured, and sold by the German optical manufacturer Steinheil for its CASCA II camera.This lens was sold with the mount changed to a Leica L39 screw.

A detailed description of the Casca 2 can be found in “Camera Review Classic Camera Specialty No. 45Leica-type cameras of the world.”

The lens has two spheres attached to a helicoid as the focus ring knob, and when viewed from the front it resembles that mascot in dreamland. However, it’s not as big as his ears.
It was my mistake not to include the distinctive appearance when I took the exterior photo, but if you search on the internet you can find images, so please refer to them.

When I attached it to my Leica M9 via the L/M adapter and took pictures, it was also linked to the rangefinder, and it was easy to operate with the focus knob mentioned earlier.

The important thing is that the lens is dark at F4.5 considering its luxurious 6-element structure in 4 groups, but the focus is fairly solid. Some reviews mention vignetting, but as long as I used it with the Leica M9, I didn’t notice much of it, and I was more concerned about the lack of beautiful depictions of out-of-focus areas.

The front frame of this lens has a 36.5mm thread, but the thread is deep in the front frame, making it difficult to use regular filters. This special filter frame is used in the Leica Sumita 50mm. Therefore, the 36.5 > 39mm conversion ring released for the Sumita 50mm can be used as is. By attaching this, you can use a common 39mm filter and lens hood with this lens. I used the 39mm screw-in hood for the final release Elmar 50mm F2.8 because it fit just right. I remember that the surrounding area was not kicked.

As an accessory for the lens, there is a dedicated 35mm viewfinder, but this is a remnant of the fact that the original CASA II did not have a 35mm viewfinder frame, and since the M-type Leica can use the standard 35mm viewfinder frame, this external finder is not a necessary accessory. The small rectangular viewfinder doesn’t look good when you look through it, but it’s good for styling the camera.

Although it doesn’t seem to be manufactured in large numbers, it is not very expensive and is a relatively common lens on the used market. The reason for this is thought to be that it is a dark lens with a large F value for a lens with a focal length of 35mm.

This is easy to understand by taking Canon’s 35mm rangefinder lens as an example as of 2024. The bright lens 35mm F1.5 costs over 400,000 yen, but the slightly darker 35mm F2 costs less than 100,000 yen. And 35mm F3.5 can be purchased for tens of thousands of yen.
This is an example of how the brightness of a lens’ aperture F-number is directly linked to its price.

The same goes for Leica’s 35mm lenses, where the price hierarchy is determined by brightness: Summilux > Summicron > Summaron > Elmar. As expected, the latest Apo Summicron is more expensive than the Summilux, but the M mount Apo series is considered to be a special lens.

Specification

Lens name	Orthostigmat	ELMAR
Focal length(mm)	35	←
Max aperture	4.5	3.5
Min aperture	16	18
Leaf blade numbers	6	6
Lens Construction	4群6枚	3群4枚
Min distance(m)	1.0	1.0
Lens length(mm)	–	14
Max diameter(mm)	–	48
Filter Size(mm)	36.5	19
Weight(g)	–	130
Release date	1945	1930

Reference links

Update history

2024.04.26

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